


Broken Crown

by kenporusty



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives, Angst, Flawed Thorin, Gen, Gold Sick Fíli, Kíli making a huge decision without thinking about it first, but it's still not perfect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 02:51:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenporusty/pseuds/kenporusty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The line of Durin won't so easily be broken...</p>
<p>  <i>“Learn your place, Kíli. In this court I am not your uncle, I am your King and you will address me as such.” Thorin hissed.</i><br/><i>“No, My King, no. Where is the Crowned Prince?” Kíli got to his feet, backing up in horror, the worst racing through his mind.<br/></i><br/><i>Fíli smiled sardonically.</i><br/>"Coward." </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <span class="small">(aka Dwarves being angsty idiots and jerks)</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Crown

**Author's Note:**

> Based incredibly loosely around a Mumford and Sons song. Broken Crown. Listen to it [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXzDu071RdQ).
> 
> Certain ideas in the song have been rearranged to fit the flow of this work.

_“Fíli,” a soft, but stern voice roused the prince.  
_

_Fíli groaned, and pulled his pillow of his head, sighing heavily before sitting up and coming face to face with Thorin at the end of his bed. He started a little. Thorin had a lamp lit, casting sharp shadows over his features._

_“Uncle, what do you want? It’s barely morning.”_

_“So it seems your ability to sense danger and awaken at any moment has faded in our three years in Erebor. You will begin to sleep in the warrior’s barracks until you can be woken in a moment’s notice.” Thorin frowned._

_Fíli blinked owlishly, “how long have you been here?”_

_“A half hour or so.”_

_“You’ve been watching me while I sleep?” Fíli felt a little put off._

_“You are my golden treasure, Fíli. Get up and follow me.”_

_Fíli frowned but obeyed, pulling trousers and a loose shirt on. He followed Thorin through the halls. Together they stopped in front of the treasury, the sleepy guards nodding to their King and Heir. Fíli looked questioningly at Thorin, but followed him obediently into the gilded hall full of the unbound treasure and wealth of his people._

_“This is the entire wealth of the people of Erebor, Fíli. Every day it grows. Beautiful.”_

_In the dim light of the fires in the sconces, Fíli saw a darkness flash before his Uncle’s eyes._

_Thorin tore his eyes from the gold to reiterate._

_“Beautiful.”_

_The prince kept silent as Thorin reached for his face, where he ran a single fingertip along Fíli’s plush lips. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to run. He wanted to find his mother and cry into her skirts. This was no longer his uncle. Something tainted his mind, made him like this._

_He shook as he held his breath._

_“Do you hear it, Fíli? Every dwarf does, the singing of the metal, the siren song of the gold. Listen for it, Fíli, hear it call for you.”_

_Fíli closed his eyes and willed his king away. In the ringing darkness, he heard a voice calling for him, soft and sweet, malleable as the metal so beloved and treasured around him. If he breathed, he would breathe a lie. He could not deny it anymore. The gold pulled at his mind, at his skin._

_The longer Thorin kept him, the longer the sun arched across the sky to sink below the opposite horizon, the longer he felt the pressure and the weight, the more he heard the voice call stronger, louder. Overwhelming._

_He needed nothing else. Everything he needed was here._

** 

“Prince Kíli, you are needed,” a dwarf said at the door. Kíli looked up and saw one of the pages in the court at his door.

“For what?” Kíli asked, brushing the youngster off.

“My Lord Thorin requests your presence in the throne hall. He says you must come, and you must dress your finest. You have five minutes.” The page bowed low.

Kíli’s head snapped up. He searched his thoughts and memories. Nothing was scheduled. He would have brushed off the summons, but the page looked nervous and confused, so Kíli rose from where he sat and rushed through his apartment looking for his discarded court wear.

He found the intricate robes in a heap in a corner. He hoped no one noticed the wrinkles.

** 

Four minutes later Kíli stood outside the doors of the throne hall, facing a rather annoyed looking Balin. 

Balin led the way, and Kíli kneeled before his uncle on the carved green-grey stone throne. Above his head, the Arkenstone reclaimed shimmered, casting a strange halo of light around Thorin’s dark hair.

The King Under the Mountain rose smoothly once he saw his nephew.

“Kíli you are brought before me with no ceremony because I feel there is none needed.” His voice was quiet but carried well.

Kíli raised his head, looking around warily. There was no golden prince beside Thorin’s throne. Few members of the company arranged themselves in their family groups far to the side, mixed with Dain’s men.

“Where is Fíli?” Kíli asked sharply, interrupting Thorin in some great speech.

The King looked taken aback.

“Why hold court, uncle, when the Crown Prince is so obviously absent?”

Thorin was upon him in three great strides, the back of his hand connecting with his cheek, sending him reeling. The buckles of the glove caught in Kíli’s skin; the sound of the dripping blood on the cold stone the only sound in the suddenly silent hall. Kíli held a hand to his face, pressing the smooth fabric of his sleeve against the wound. He cowered before his uncle, his king, but still looked at him defiantly.

“Learn your place, Kíli. In this court I am not your uncle, I am your King and you will address me as such.” Thorin hissed.

Kíli recovered enough to look his uncle, his King, in the eyes. There lay darkness behind his eyes, a seething madness that was not just the gold sickness he struggled with from day to day. True, he wore no metal but gold, but he had not fallen so completely under its control. Many times Thorin sought out Kíli for comfort as a father seeks solace with his son and a strong drink.

Kíli’s eyes fell upon gold and stone circlet in Thorin’s hands. The gold and stone circlet that belonged on Fíli’s brow.

“No, My King, no. Where is the Crowned Prince?” Kíli got to his feet, backing up in horror, the worst racing through his mind.

“He is unable to attend, as I told you. Now be still, Kíli.” Thorin’s anger bubbled beneath the surface of his words.

He cleared his throat to speak again, Kíli listening carefully.

“To this end, under Mahal’s guidance and with His blessing, we forge in stone the Crown Prince of Erebor…”

Thorin moved to place the circlet on Kíli’s brow. Kíli slapped it from his hands.

The crown clattered to the floor in silence, the broken stonework rolling in an aimless circle before resting at Kíli’s boot.

He noticed the change in Thorin.

And the change in Fíli.

Fíli…

“Where is my brother? Why do you crown me Prince when he is so obviously in line?” Kíli looked at the shattered piece, gritting his teeth, causing his cheek pain. “My King Thorin I refuse this broken crown. I will not be your chosen one. I am not first-born, it is not my blood right, I am not the direct descendant of your illustrious line.”

The murmurs that had begun stopped.

Jagged edges of the fragment in his hand cut into his palm under his balled fist, the blood dripping from his little finger. He cast his eyes to the floor.

“Your illustrious line plagued by a sickness for the very metal that made us prosperous. That is why the Crown Prince is not here, isn’t it, King, Uncle.” Kíli spoke slowly, lifting his eyes to meet Thorin’s as he spoke. “Unless you find a pretty little consort to console you at nights, the line of Durin ends right here.”

A wave of wagging tongues spread through the crowd, shattering the silence after Kíli’s proclamation. Dain’s men talked among themselves. The dwarves of the Company remained shocked to silence.

Kíli met no one’s eyes as he turned on his heel.

He threw the fragment to the abyss; with it fell his blood.

** 

Solid boots echoed in the stone halls, long forgotten, now fully cleaned of the dragon’s taint.

The guards forced him back from the doors of the treasury.

As a Prince, he should have access. As a member of the Company, he should have access.

The guards glared at his retreating form, speaking quietly of his lack of beard and braids. How he was more man than dwarf. Kíli spared them no thought.

** 

He looked to the windows of Fíli’s apartment as two of Dain’s warriors looked on. No light passed the curtains. Kíli chewed his lip. 

** 

“Uncle,” Kíli pushed the heavy door to Thorin’s chambers, the hinges groaning with the weight of the stone and wood.

“Guards,” Thorin called, sounding almost bored or tired. “Please remove this dwarf. Take him to Master Balin to arrange an official meeting.”

“What? Uncle, Thorin, it’s your nephew!” Kíli struggled against the strong hands holding his biceps.

“And you are also the one who refused the crown when offered, the one who disavowed himself of the line of Durin and shattered the line I worked so hard to maintain. You have sealed your own fate; you are no longer who you were, Kíli.” Thorin never looked up from the paperwork on his desk, pen nib scratching the parchments as he worked.

“Do you wish to stay in Erebor as a common dwarf, find work among the people and live your life knowing what you gave up, what you had you can never have again. Alternatively, you can leave the mountain; truly prove that all I have done and fought for was worth nothing to you. You will be outcast from Erebor, never to return. Tell me your choice now.”

“I chose neither. I leave this place of my own volition. I place myself in exile. I cannot stay where the rule is poisoned.”

“You have until twilight.”

The guards pulled Kíli from the room.

** 

"Fíli..." Kíli's voice broke. He found his brother in his own apartment.

He had to force his way around the guard, one of Dain's warriors, to get close, decrying the need to see his brother once more before he left forever.

With Thorin's proclamation, Kíli was no longer a Prince or an heir. He was a common dwarf, and as such, not afforded the freedom and luxury he knew in his past life.

Thorin's poison coursed thickly through Fíli's veins and his mind. He didn't know the words Thorin spoke into Fíli's ears, but now his brother would no look at any piece in the room unless it contained gold.

The gold sickness forced upon his brother. Kíli felt ill.

"Fíli," he found his voice again. Again, there was no answer, just the shifting of his gaze from golden object to golden object.

In the corner, two golden birds in a gilded cage sang rainbows.

In anger and hurt, Kíli grasped the golden braid that indicated Fíli's status as a Dwarf of Durin. He held the braid in front of his face. Clear, blue eyes the hue of oceans they would never see focused finally on Kíli's face.

"Fíli I am leaving. The crown is broken, and Thorin has poisoned your mind. Dear brother I love you, I love my people, but I cannot stay and watch the kingdom of my kin to fall."

Fíli's face dawned with recognition as he fought to place the dwarf before him. He drowned in a sea of gold. Deep within his mind, he cried out for his brother, cried to tell him not to go, to explain why Thorin sabotaged his own line. _That damn advisor._

Fíli smiled sardonically.

"Coward." Was all he said before pulling his braid free and turning his gaze from his brother, instead watching the birds in their cage.

Kíli kissed his brother once, turned and left. 

** 

His own apartment, which he still had access to, had nothing of value left. A rucksack, traveler’s clothes, dry rations, and a meager assortment of coin sat on the table next to his bow and quiver.

He stripped to his underclothes, discarding the beloved blue, trading it for the mustard yellows and browns of the common folk. The cloth was rough and itchy not smooth and fine.

Even in the Ered Luin, his clothes were of a finer make.

Kíli refused to meet his eyes in the mirror once carefully inlaid with Mithril. His brother’s word echoed in his mind. He knew they were true.

Now the empty channels where the silver once flowed felt like his soul, broken, hollow, and not quite complete.

Twilight was coming.

"My son," Dís' tight voice came from the door.

Kíli's eyes skirted his own wholly alien frame to meet the same icy blue eyes of his uncle. Kíli's face crumpled, tears threatening.

"Why would he do this?" Kíli snarled.

"Do what beloved?" Dís asked her voice relaxing. She came unbidden into her son's living space.

"Do whatever he did to Fíli, so all he saw was gold. He didn't even look at me. He was lost in that _filth_." Dís raised her brows briefly and continued her approach.

"So you are leaving." Dís' voice was flat.

"You came to call me a coward as well." It was a statement, accusation hung thick in the air.

"I make no such assumptions or accusations." She now stood behind her son.

She reached and took his hand, squeezing his warm flesh. Her fingers traced lightly the wound from the throne room. He felt tears prickle behind his eyelids, and he scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, as he did when he was a child. He looked with sadness at the form of his mother. She moved to envelop her son in a hug, to tuck her head into his shoulder, to stand there and absorb the life of her son she may never see again.

Erebor was a cursed place. He would leave forever. He would never see his mother, his brother, or his uncle again. Even if Erebor prospered again, it would fall.

Such is the folly of dwarves.

He finally met his own eyes in the mirror, glassy with tears unshed and fears unvoiced. He noticed the gap between their hands, between their bodies. He felt the weight but there was nothing there but an illusion: a reflection of what he desired most. 

The wraith of his mother chuckled darkly.

With a scream of rage, he buried his fist in the glass of the mirror. Shards fell like rain on the floor. Glinting fragments buried themselves in his knuckles, the red of his blood spilled twice in one day.

He whipped around and greeted nothing.

Blood dripping on the deeply embroidered rugs, Kíli left the mess there, grabbing the pack set for him, fastening a bow and quiver about his shoulders, hiding everything in the one memory of Erebor and his former lineage he kept: a dark cloak lined with the same blue of his beloved family line.

** 

Pulling the hood up to hide his face, he walked like a dead man to the front gates. 

** 

No one waited for him save for Thorin, Dís, Balin, and Thorin’s advisor in a shadowed corner.

“My proclamation that the line of Durin is not so easily broken is false.” Balin said quietly, voice echoing in the spacious halls. With soft footfalls, he left.

“It is twilight. Where will you go?” Dís asked her son, pulling him to her level to press their foreheads together.

Kíli went hesitantly, still shaken after the mirror.

“Everywhere, nowhere,” he said flatly. The glass still buried in his knuckles pained him though the blood began to clot.

Thorin sniffed.

“You have disavowed your inheritance, your position, and your family line. You have disgraced the name of Durin, and are stripped of it.” Thorin said coldly. “By Mahal’s grace…”

“How dare you speak of grace after all you have done,” Kíli hissed.

Thorin looked taken aback, the clouded look in his eyes clearing briefly.

"How dare you after you tainted my brother's mind so. Taken him and given him the gold sickness so that you may not suffer, and yet there is still darkness about you. It sickens me, uncle."

“Be gone from Erebor, Kíli.”

Kíli felt the subtle insult sting. By refusing to state his father’s name, he declared Kíli illegitimate, a bastard, born of breccia.

The gates opened, flooding the room with the dark shades of the setting sun. Kíli steeled his expression and walked through the gates, which were long to close behind him. He walked from the mountain, guided by the distant lights of the settlement that reclaimed the ruins of Dale. As he walked, he pulled the shards from his knuckles, relishing in the sting of the pain, giving him something to focus on.

Dís watched the retreating figure of her son, refusing to let that threatened fall.

She turned on Thorin with a fury only mothers know.

“I do not know what you have done, what you have said, but I will find out. How dare you do this to your family, your heirs, and your nephews? May you be buried under the sky Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thór.”

Thorin laughed once, watching as his sister stalked off into the dark of the city.

“In twilight, our choices seal our fate.” Thorin rumbled and waved the advisor away as a man shoos a fly.

He followed his sister into the city, allowing a single tear to trickle and fall down his lined face.

**_To be continued in "Hopeless Wanderer"_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I'm not sorry for what I've done. I will make it up to you, just hang in there for the three other works in this series.


End file.
